I think Gripping Beast has really missed the boat on this one. They should have put these high up on their production schedule and released them soon after the release of Saga. Their armoured Vikings are excellent, and I am sure there are many other like me who wanted to build a complete Saga army of GB plastics but have had to look elsewhere for unarmoured warriors. Personally I have used Miniature Design Studios Saxons for mine, and whilst the helmets are not quite right they are nice figures and very cheap (50p each if you buy in bulk). I would bet the sales on these when they are eventually released will be much lower than if they were released a year ago.

The unarmoured dark age infantry are scheduled to be released no later than Salute 2013, possibly slightly earlier. The box will include spearmen, javelinmen and slingers and the proportions of each will work with SAGA warbands as well as for larger armies. Archers are on the agenda for later, possibly as a part sprue.GB Plastics is a self-funding operation so a new release can only happen when sales of existing boxes generate sufficient income. Yes we would love to have produced these figures earlier, but sadly it wasn't feasible.

It sounds like they have already got sufficient amounts of cash in the bank (or at least close enough). If they have the sculpts ready, then the next step would involve getting Renedra to tool them into actual moulds. Don't forget that a whole lot of plastic manufacturers also want to have their moulds ready in time for the Salute.

I will believe it when I see greens, 3-ups, and test shots. We have been put on hold on these with "They will be out by ???". I think that the profit margin on these is so much lower than metal, we are going to be put off for a long time. Any competition with their own metal line will be costing them money. So empty promises is all we are going to get. TIG

I have been waiting so long and for these that I have been sort of thinking along the same lines as Tigrifsgtinsofar as I wonder why a company would provide a cheaper alternative to products they already make. I can see the point of putting out a couple of sets to attract buyers to the GB product line. But with the introduction of the unarmoured figures, all Vikings, Saxons (middle and late), and maybe Welsh/Northern British/Later Scots infantry (depending on what you think they looked like and how you paint them)could be covered by the plastics alone at half the price of the metals. I am not a business person, and maybe unaware of genuine reasons for making these figures available, other than offering a cheaper alternative to getting customers to buy from GB. A great idea,made even better by the fact that the plastics IMO are just as good if not better than the recent metal figures produced by this company.The reasons for the delays seem plausible. I have been excited by the prospect of these figures for about 2 years(?) now, so I'm keeping the faith and waiting for Salute .

Once you've made an injection moulding die, the manufacturing process is to all intents and purposes automatic and you can crank out lots of frames in fairly short order, costing pence. Even selling them at half the price of metals, you're probably making significantly more profit per figure than hand cast figures, with the extra labour involved in the process.

There is of course the cost of the die probably several tens of thousands of pounds. This has, I'm sure, as much to do with the speed of release of new sets as the bottleneck at the die maker.

lol I want them made too but come on chaps, they will be done when they are done. If the beast can't afford atm then they can't, simple as that really. I'm sure we have got other things to worry about than when a company release some figures